24th CONGRESS No. 1578. 2d SESSION
ON A CLAIM TO LAND IN OHIO
COMMUNICATED TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 24, 1837.
Mr. Patterson, from the Committee on Private Land Claims, to whom was referred the petition of Mary Sroufe, reported:
That the said petitioner sets forth that she, together with her husband, (Sebastian Sroufe,) emigrated to Piqua county, in the State of Ohio, in the year 1824; and, being poor, settled on the West fraction of the southeast quarter of section 21, in township 1 north, of range 5 east; that, before they became enabled to purchase said land, the sale was stopped by the officers of the government; that, in 1830, her husband died, leaving her with a large and helpless family; that she still hoped to become the purchaser of said land when the government again offered it for sale; and for the purpose of entitling herself to the benefit of the law granting to actual settlers rights by pre-emption, she filed her papers and vouchers, proving her settlement and occupancy of said tracts of land; and that, for reasons which she appears not to understand, she is deprived of the right to purchase. Her prayer to Congress is, that she may be permitted to purchase the land at such price as may be thought just and proper. The testimony filed by the petitioner, in proof of her settlement, occupancy, and improvement, proves conclusively that her claim would be a good one, had not Congress, by an act passed on the 24th day of May, 1828, reserved the section on which her tract is situated—one half of which was to be appropriated for extending the canal from Dayton to Lake Erie, in the State of Ohio, and the balance directed not to be sold for less than two dollars and fifty cents per acre; while the law of 1834 (called the pre-emption act) gave to actual settlers their land at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. Your committee are, therefore, satisfied, that although her proof of occupancy, settlement, and improvements, are clearly proven, yet that she is not entitled to the right of pre-emption under the law of 1834, because the act itself grants only on such lands as are not reserved by law, or by direction of the President, &c. But had it not been for the law granting land to aid the Dayton canal, which induced the government to double its price on the alternate sections, her right of entering the land at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, and was deprived of that right by the land being reserved, or raised to two dollars and fifty cents per acre, your committee can see no reason why she should not be permitted to purchase the land at the price which Congress has set upon said land. If the government, in justice to actual settlers have heretofore, and do now, sell them the land on which they have settled and made improvements at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, we can see no reason why that right should be withheld because the government has raised the price of the land to two dollars and fifty cents per acre; and have, therefore, reported a bill for her relief.
